Videos from Libya: “I’m in Qaddafi’s Room”

On Tuesday, Libyan rebels celebrated the takeover of the Bab al-Aziziya compound, where they hoped Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was hiding. Their victory dance involved firing guns into the air, kicking a bronze sculpture, and ripping a poster of Qaddafi’s face. There were also hugs and two-fingered victory signs.

While looting the compound, one rebel reportedly seized Qaddafi’s hat from his bedroom. “It was like, oh my God, I’m in Qaddafi’s room. Oh my god,” he told a reporter.

Or perhaps we should say “in Gathafi’s room.” This blurry video of his son’s passport reveals the much-disputed English transliteration of the family name.

Fighting continues within the compound, where the rebel fighters face resistance from Qaddafi loyalists. “There is nowhere near a safe picture really in this compound yet,” said Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton.

On Wednesday, Qaddafi loyalists at the Rixos Hotel “essentially just capitulated” and released the three dozen journalists they had been holding there, said Matthew Chance, a correspondent for CNN, who was among those trapped in the Rixos. “It has been a very complicated, a very frightening, a very emotional rollercoaster of the past five days.” The video below comes from inside the hotel.

And in the raw footage here, the journalists, relieved after what many feared might become a hostage situation, leave the Rixos and climb into Red Cross vans.

In a speech broadcast on Tuesday night, Qaddafi called on his supporters to take back Libya. “All tribes, men, women, and the armed masses, they should cleanse Tripoli from the traitors and rats,” he said. Qadaffi’s whereabouts remain unknown.

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